Food and Drink Ads
Selling what people eat. Coca-Cola and Pepsi and the cola wars, beer advertising, fast food, the breakfast cereal, and the milk moustache.
Part of Advertisements
18 moments in this segment.
- - Morinaga Milk Caramel Ads. 1899. Morinaga Seika starts the first wide-distribution candy + canned-milk newspaper campaign in Japan. Translated American mass-marketing approaches with Japanese aesthetics; foundational to modern Japanese ad practice.
- - Coca-Cola "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke". 1971. The "Hilltop" Coke ad on the Italian hillside, multi-ethnic young people singing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke." Released as a hit single ("I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing"). The advertising-as-culture-anthem template.
- - Hovis "Boy on Bike" Ad. 1973. Ridley Scott's Hovis ad, boy pushes a bike up a cobbled hill in Yorkshire, soundtrack of Dvořák's "New World" symphony. Voted UK's favourite ad of all time multiple polls. Defined nostalgia-as-brand-storytelling.
- - Guinness "Surfer". October 1999. Guinness "Surfer", black-and-white waves crash into white horses, soundtrack of Leftfield's "Phat Planet." Voted Britain's favourite ad of all time. Set the bar for cinematic brand storytelling.
- - Ricky Martin x Pepsi. 1999. Ricky Martin signs with Pepsi at the peak of his crossover moment ("Livin' la Vida Loca"). The defining late-1990s celebrity-mega-endorsement, paving the way for Britney, Beyoncé, the 2000s pop-star-as-soda-pitchman era.
- - Tata Tea "Jaago Re". 2007. Tata Tea's "Jaago Re" ("Wake Up") campaign, tied chai-drinking to civic awakening + voter registration. Voted by Indian ad-industry as the most important Indian campaign of the 2000s.
- - Cadbury Gorilla. August 31, 2007. Cadbury Dairy Milk's "Gorilla" ad, a gorilla drumming to Phil Collins's "In the Air Tonight." 8M+ YouTube views in the first month. Won the Cannes Lions Grand Prix; the ad that proved YouTube could carry a brand campaign.
- - Evian "Rollerbabies". July 2009. Evian's CGI roller-skating babies dancing to "Rapper's Delight." 70M+ YouTube views in 2 months. Guinness World Record for "most-viewed online ad" of 2009.
- - Glico Pretz "Ghibli"-Style Ads. 2000s onward. Glico's Pretz snack TV ads in distinctive Studio-Ghibli-adjacent anime style. Defined a generation of "soft anime-aesthetic" Japanese food advertising.
- - Cravendale "Cats With Thumbs". 2011. Cravendale milk's "Cats With Thumbs", Wieden+Kennedy London. Cats with opposable thumbs threaten to steal the milk. Pure absurdist British creative; won the 2011 Cannes Lions Bronze.
- - Cadbury Dairy Milk India - "Kuch Khaas Hai". 1994. Cadbury India's "Kuch Khaas Hai" ("Something special") campaign, woman dancing on cricket pitch after husband's six. Repositioned chocolate from kid-only to adult-too. Defined modern Indian advertising emotion.
- - Nando's South Africa - Roast Campaigns. 2002 onward. Nando's South African ad campaigns, TBWA/Hunt/Lascaris's consistently controversial topical roasts on Mugabe, Zuma, Trump. Banned + reinstated repeatedly; defined African advertising provocation.
- - Absolut Drop "100 Years". 2017. Absolut Vodka's 100th-anniversary "Drop" film. Cinematic, allegorical, climate-positioned. Defined late-2010s "brand as cinematic statement" advertising.
- - Liquid Death Mountain Water. 2019 onward. Liquid Death, water in a tallboy beer-can, markets itself as a heavy-metal-aesthetic brand. By 2024: $263M revenue. Sponsorship deals with Tony Hawk, Steve-O. Created the "anti-brand brand" template.
- - KFC Translation Mishap in China. 1987. KFC opens its first China store in Beijing, "finger-lickin' good" reportedly mistranslated as "eat your fingers off." Folk story (probably embellished) that became one of the most-cited advertising-translation cautionary tales.
- - Pocari Sweat Ads. 1980 onward. Otsuka Pharma's Pocari Sweat, sky-blue cans + summer-school sentimentality. One of the most-recognised Japanese commercial soundtracks; defined the "youth-nostalgia ad" template that K-pop dramas later borrowed.
- - Coca-Cola "Masterpiece". March 2023. Coca-Cola's "Masterpiece" ad, a Coke bottle travels through famous paintings (Vermeer, Hokusai, Munch). Mixed CGI + live action. Defined the early-2020s "AI-aware brand storytelling" aesthetic.
- - Skol "Desce Redondo". 1998. Skol's "Desce Redondo" ("Goes Down Round") campaign, F/Nazca's edgy beer creative defined Brazilian advertising attitude. Made Skol Brazil's number-1 beer brand for two decades.
